Subscribers can read Part I
Again, I’d like to thank the folks who sent e-mails about the first part of this article. My discussion on homophobia within the transgender community seems to have a struck a few chords. In Part I, I gave some examples of how the fear of being considered gay colors transgenderistic writing. I thought that it was especially hypocritical for transgender writers to denigrate people who share a strong commonality: both groups reject society’s rigid gender roles. But homophobia not only hurts the relationship with our gay cousins, it also impairs intimate relationships within the transgender community.
An example of just such an impaired relationship is in the Fall issue of The Sweetheart Connection, "But I’m Not a Lesbian! One Couple’s Solution." Jane and Frances Fairfax write about a couple who could not overcome the wife’s disgust of her husband in a nightgown; she said it made her feel like a lesbian. Unlike the unhappy couple they describe, the Fairfaxes were eventually able to incorporate the husband’s crossdressing in the bedroom, but only after a tortuous process of rationalization and mutual reassurance that neither partner was homosexual. While I congratulate them for their communicative skills and success in working on their relationship, I can’t help but feel that if everyone could refrain from equating homosexuality with child molestation, murder or rape, all might more quickly get over initial embarrassment and have some fun.
I expect most men and women have sexual fantasies. Repressing them, I think, is harmful. It’s better to update a page from St. Paul and express these fantasies in marriage, because if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone had a relationship in which they could feel comfortable being wild and crazy with each other? I’d love to say to that frightened wife who protests she’s not a lesbian when her husband is approaching wearing nothing but a nightie and a grin, "Hey, girl, be a lesbian for one night! What’s it going to hurt? I mean, you’re with your husband, your lover, your soul mate, for heaven’s sake! Don’t let a little fabric get between you and your husband."
Of course, it cannot be a one way street. What’s good for the goose, etc. The husband must reciprocate. He must be attentive to the wife to see what would please her as well. In that same article, the Fairfaxes relate how a therapist asked a crossdresser how he would react if his wife wanted to dress as a guy for bed. And, of course, it was made into a joke with the crossdresser blurting out, "I have a headache!" But if that really were the wife’s fantasy, then the guy should go with it, try it out, have fun with it, and certainly not be afraid of what it says about his manhood. If we’re talking about two people who trust and love each other, what is a little role-playing? If it turns you on, take turns wearing the French Maid outfit. How far you can go within the well-defined parameters of an intimate partnership says a lot about the couple’s mutual trust, communication and creativity. But how does one get a relationship in which incorporating a little fantasy does not threaten either partner?
I don’t think there is a simple answer. I am no grand pooh-bah of marital relations. I am just a lucky guy who is married to a wonderful woman who supports his crossdressing. My wife, Juana, was the one who found out about the local support group, checked out the location and accompanied me to my first meeting. (All of this -- including the busted water balloon -- has already been detailed in Juana’s Wife and Times of a Cross Dresser, which I think Cindy has published here before.) However, before we married, I was the one who suggested that we visit a marriage counselor. Even though there wasn’t anything wrong, I wanted to open as many doors of communication as possible. I didn’t see counseling as an expensive luxury but rather as sort of preventive medicine. (After all, it makes sense to invest heavily in your most important relationship.) But even with the advantage of counseling, I was still so inhibited about my desire to cross dress that it took me nearly six years to talk about it! So, as I said, I am not posturing as someone with answers, but only as someone who is not afraid to ask questions and seek communication. In February, Juana and I will be married thirteen years. They’ve been the best years of my life, and the years I’ve been openly crossdressing with her have been thick icing on a very rich cake.
However, once my crossdressing was in the open and so easily accepted by my wife, I’m afraid I fell into just about every pattern Barbara Anderson talks about in "The Plight of the Crossdresser’s Wife" in Devil Woman’s December issue. I used my wife’s clothing and jewelry, impulsively bought impractical items and, I’m embarrassed to say, really became enamored with Veronica’s looks. I went out dressed as much as I could and attended three transgender conventions one after the other. I became very self-absorbed and structured more and more of my life around crossdressing. I colored my hair (which by then was long) and wore it down at work, grew my nails and polished them with clear or pink enamel. I didn’t hide my shaved legs and usually wore hose instead of socks. I worked on my voice to find an ambiguous pitch, tweezed my eyebrows till they were pretty thin and started electrolysis. None of this seemed to put off Juana. Once, without any prompting from me, Juana said that if I decided to take hormones and become a woman, she would support me in that as well. And though she had always considered herself heterosexual, she would still want to go on loving me. When Juana said that, I did not commit myself to anything, but my mind went into overdrive, and (again) I’m embarrassed to say, I thought only of myself. Though squeamish when considering the big surgery, the idea of having my own breasts was a real turn-on. I took self-portraits of the results of my initial electrolysis, stared in the mirror and wondered how surgeries and hormones would change what I saw there.
About this time, I heard an interview with David Cronenberg, the writer and director. He’s known for some pretty shocking films, but I was interested in him for M. Butterfly, a movie (partially based on a true story) which involves the romance between a French government official and a Chinese opera singer. The French official does not truly know that his paramour is a man and when he does find out, rejects him. Mr. Cronenberg said that most of his films (The Fly, Dead Ringer, M. Butterfly, etc.) explore the growing realization that a loving relationship is no longer possible because one partner has drastically changed. It happens in life, he explained. A partner may endure a life-altering experience or may age much faster than the other due to illness (Alzheimer’s, for example). Even in younger relationships, drugs may cause so great a personality shift that little seems left of the original soul mate. While I realized that most women would not have to face what Geena Davis did when she discovered that her lover had turned into a big bug, after hearing Cronenberg’s interview, I couldn’t help but wonder how my wife would really react to my projected transmogrification.
To understand what Juana was willing to accept, I tried to imagine how I would feel if Juana changed her sex. I created in my mind a phantom-Juana; then one by one I took away the various attributes of femininity and transplanted in their place the signifiers of manhood. In all honesty, I thought Juana would make a funny-looking guy. I wondered how the neighbors would react, what our families would say, how we would be different with each other. Ultimately, though (and this surprised me), I honestly felt that none of that stuff mattered much. I kept picturing her smile and bright eyes and knew I would never want to leave her, whatever her outward form. So I guess that means I am not a true heterosexual. But, oddly, once I realized this, there seemed to be no strong impetus to feminize. It was as if once I actually realized how emotionally committed we were to each other, somehow my body shape seemed less important. I felt a wonderful contentment, a sense of satisfaction. I know if ever I do transition, my soul mate will be with me. And while I still fantasize about feminization, I don’t feel any particular hurry or need to do so. So I guess that means I am certainly not a true transsexual either. I’m just a guy floating somewhere on the transgender continuum who has found his soul mate.
I have no way of knowing, but I suspect that for mature loving couples, the outward attributes of sexual difference recede somewhat in significance. These couples would continue to love each other even after the impairment of major sexual signifiers (through prostate or breast cancer, say), because over the years the two have become part of each other. Perhaps, with care and courage, partners can have spiritual and sexual relationships without worrying about labeling them hetero or homo. Perhaps partners can share a love in which neither is male nor female. Perhaps we can have a completely satisfying relationship when we are more concerned with the soul we mate than the body.
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